Note 9 — Chapter III · LOCALITY AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS.

On a closer examination, however, the relation between John and the synoptical writers is not simply such, that the latter might not know what the former records, but such, that they must have proceeded from positively opposite data. For example, the synoptical writers, Matthew especially, as often as Jesus leaves Galilee, from the time that he takes up his abode there after the Baptist’s imprisonment, seldom neglect to give a particular reason; such as that he wished to escape from the crowd by a passage across the sea (Matt. viii. 18), or that he withdrew into the wilderness of Perea to avoid the snares of Herod (xiv. 13), or that he retired into the region of Tyre and Sidon on account of the offence taken by the scribes at his preaching (xv. 21): John, on the contrary, generally alleges a special reason why Jesus leaves Judea, and retires into Galilee. Not to contend that his very first journey thither appears to be occasioned solely by the invitation to Cana, his departure again into Galilee after the first passover attended by him in his public character, is expressly accounted for by the ominous attention which the increasing number of his disciples had excited among the Pharisees (iv. 1 ff.). His retirement after the second feast, also, into the country east of the Sea of Tiberias (vi. 1), must be viewed in relation to the ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἀποκτεῖναι (v. 18), since immediately after, the Evangelist assigns as a reason for the continuance of Jesus in Galilee, the malignant designs of his enemies, which rendered his abode in Judea perilous to his life (vii. 1). The interval between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of the Dedication seems to have been spent by Jesus in the capital,9 no unpropitious circumstances compelling him to absent himself (x. 22); on the other hand, his journey into Perea (x. 40) and that into Ephraim (xi. 54) are presented as effects of his persecution by the Jews.